All news

ECHR obliges Russian government to pay compensation to blogger Navalny

The Russian authorities are supposed to pay €26,000 in compensation for non-material damage to Alexey Navalny and Ilya Yashin

STRASBOURG, December 4 /TASS/. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has obliged the Russian authorities to pay a monetary compensation to blogger Alexey Navalny and opposition figurehead Ilya Yashin.

Both were sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest for disobeying police orders during an unsanctioned opposition march in Moscow in December 2011, the ECHR said in its statement published on Thursday.

The Russian authorities are supposed to pay €26,000 in compensation for non-material damage to each of the applicants. In addition to that, Navalny is expected to receive another €2,500 to cover the legal fees.

The Strasbourg Court stated that the (Russian) authorities’ actions had contradicted a number of provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights on personal security and the right to protection and freedom when detaining Navalny and Yashin. Some procedural actions were violated, the Court said.

The Solidarity opposition movement organized a rally on Chistoprudny Boulevard downtown Moscow on December 5, 2011 to protest against allegedly rigged elections to the Russian State Duma. It was attended by about 2,000 people, the Moscow police said.

Police warned the demonstrators that they had to disperse peacefully after the rally. Dozens of people, however, made an attempt to break the police cordon, put up resistance to policemen and tried to block traffic.

Police detained more than 300 protesters, including Ilya Yashin and Alexey Navalny, who, according to the law enforcers, were actively calling for disobeying police.

Navalny and Yashin, however, claimed they were simply returning to Navalny’s car without putting up any resistance, the ECHR wrote in its materials on the case.